Issue - meetings

The Northstowe and New Communities Portfolio Holder:

·                agreed the contents of the Annual Monitoring Report (included as Appendix 2 to the report) for publication and submission to the Secretary of State; and

·                delegated any further minor editing changes to the Annual Monitoring Report to the Corporate Manager (Planning and New Communities) where they are technical matters.

This decision was published on Friday 27 January 2012. Democratic Services must be notified of any call-in by 5pm on Friday 3 February 2012. If not called in, the decision may be implemented on Monday 6 February 2012.

Appendix 2 – South Cambridgeshire Annual Monitoring Report (January 2012) – is attached to the electronic version of the agenda on the Council’s website.  It consists of 154 pages.

The Northstowe and New Communities Portfolio Holder:

·                agreed the contents of the Annual Monitoring Report (included as Appendix 2 to the report) for publication and submission to the Secretary of State; and

·                delegated any further minor editing changes to the Annual Monitoring Report to the Corporate Manager (Planning and New Communities) where they are technical matters.

The Northstowe and New Communities Portfolio Holder considered a report seeking his agreement to publish the Local Development Framework Annual Monitoring Report on the Council’s website and submit it  to the Secretary of State.

In reply to a question, the Planning Policy Manager said that existing Supplementary Planning Documents were related to adopted planning policies included in the Local Development Framework and therefore if those policies were carried forward into the South Cambridgeshire Local Plan, the SPDs would need to be revised and re-adopted.

In reply to a question, the Planning Policy Manager outlined the process of preparing the new Sustainability Appraisal Scoping Report.

A Member queried the percentage of household waste recycled and composted. It was anticipated that the next Annual Monitoring Report would show an increase in household waste recycled and composted compared to the last monitoring year, which only reflected six  months since the implementation of the blue bin scheme.

The Annual Monitoring Report included the results of the assessments of 12 completed housing developments against the Building for Life standard. In the last monitoring year, two developments had achieved ‘silver’, four developments had achieved ‘average’ and six developments had achieved ‘poor’. The Portfolio Holder stressed the importance of securing the highest possible quality of housing design throughout South Cambridgeshire. The Head of New Communities said  that the Design Council was  reviewing the Building for Life scheme and that in future the Council would consider testing housing developments against the Building for Life standard much earlier in the application process so that the design quality could be improved before the planning application was determined.

The Portfolio Holder suggested that the Annual Monitoring Report be publicised to Members and residents as it highlighted many of the Council’s achievements.

The Northstowe and New Communities Portfolio Holder:

(c)        agreed the contents of the Annual Monitoring Report (included as Appendix 2 to the report) for publication and submission to the Secretary of State; and

(d)        delegated any further minor editing changes to the Annual Monitoring Report to the Corporate Manager (Planning and New Communities) where they are technical matters.